Posted on 08/17/2011 6:16:18 AM PDT by econjack
For fear of being a political post, here are some ideas:
1: The debt ceiling will need to be raised temporarily. However the baseline budgeting process should be thrown out. Let the Federal Government budget just like any other company. (Actually these guys haven't even done a budget in 2 1/2 years). No automatic raises.
Current budgeting process also encourages various governmental agencies and departments to spend more. If they don't, next year they get less money. Thus they are always hungry for more money to spend instead of finding ideas to save money. This system is all pervasive - from local governments up. That is the stupidest system anyone can have and must be reformed.
2. Roll back the vastly inflated salaries of the federal employees, bring them back to 2008 level. All of us are at that level, many are way below in private sector. Bring the number of Federal employees down to 2008 level, even back to 2003 level. They blame Bush for expanding the government. This will take care of that argument.
3. Limit the budget increase to 1% per year, in no case more than the core inflation they are publishing.
4. Roll back regulations - they passed regulations worth $10 billion, just last month. Repeal all the unnecessary regulations enacted during last three years.
5. Repeal Obamacare now. That is a $1 trillion boondoggle. Repeal the Financial Reform act of 2010; Repeal Sarbanes-Oxley and replace it with a less stringent, more practical law. This will vastly stimulate the economic activity and bring back 6-7% GDP growth needed.
6. Scale back and eliminate entire departments which don't serve any useful functions. Eliminate duplicate agencies. Aren't there something like 80 bureaus and agencies for jobs training programs? Why do we need duplication? Eliminate NLRB, EEOC, and other agencies which have had their time. All those functions can be done with a work force about 20% of current number of Federal employees.
7. Eliminate Dept of Education - that is State and local function. Block grant Medicaid to the States - get back to the Constitution - Federal Government has only limited enumerated powers. Eliminate Dept of Energy - it did not exist before 1978. EPA did not exist before Nixon set it up. Country was doing fine before those agencies came in to existence, and those functions can be scaled back into smaller, more efficient departments.
8. Roll back stringent and unnecessary environmental regulations that are chocking the economic activity. Have sensible regulations. California has Cap-and-Trade, a totally useless and unnecessary law which stifles economic activity. The High Speed rail planned here is turning out to be a huge boondoggle - they have spent $600 million plus, before even laying out a single mile of tracks. They will connect a couple of towns with total population of around 150,000 for a cost of $9 billion - the cost has already tripled because of environmental regulations and delays. Do we need that?
9. Reform Social Security - raise the age; and give younger workers an option to invest their own money. Government has simply taken the money and spent it. It is the workers' money - let them keep it and invest it. They will do a lot better than the Ponzi scheme now in place any way.
10. Reduce capital gains tax to , say, 5%. Give an amnesty for corporations who bring money to U.S. from abroad. That will bring back $2 Trillion here.
11. Create an environment where people are free to prosper. Change the tune in Washington - from class warfare to one that encourages profits.
12. Encourage oil and gas exploration both here and in Canada. Why send money to the Sand people and the communists? We can be oil exporting country and flip $700 billion annually from going out to staying here.
13. Let people have skin in the game as far as healthcare is concerned. Have them pay some copay for doctors' visits, etc. Current system of direct deductions from paychecks third party payments takes the patient out of equation, and is not working. If people are spending their money they will be careful and control costs.
14. Implement Union reforms similar to Wisconsin, Indiana, Ohio and such states. There should be right-to-work states. Public employees should not be able to unionize. We are seeing the results of such policies now.
15. Implement meaningful legal and tort reform - like Loser pays, or cap on punitive damages. The lawyers have had a big hand in destroying this country.
I can go on and on. I am sure there are other savings that can be achieved.
All is not lost - this is a great country with awesome resources. The whole world wants to come to the U.S. and there is a reason for that. This country is a shining beacon for many like myself who came to find freedom and success, and found it here. By promoting class warfare Mr. Obama is doing exactly opposite to what should be done. He needs to be thrown out - there is no way he is capable of implementing even a single idea I outlined above. If we do these things, there will be ample money to take care of the seniors. GDP will explode and no one will talk about Medicare cutbacks. Just the expectation of such reforms will make the economy explode. The debt will then take care of itself.
Raise the debt ceiling “TEMPORARILY”?
Dear author: stop it, you’re killing me. My sides can’t take it, they’re going to bust.
Get a balanced budget amendment.
Eliminate 90% of all government “administrations” FDA, NEA, EPA etc.
Make congressional employment a part time job. They assemble when there’s a war or imminent attack otherwise stay the hell out Washington.
(1) Import tariffs targeted against countries running trade imbalances with America, proportional to those trade inbalances.
(2) Blanket import tariffs.
(3) A far more aggressive US trade policy.
— fact is we are losing jobs, because we are not keeping jobs in the United States.
Its ALL been done before....see the Recession of 1920...following the first Communist attempts on America by Woodrow Wilson...
Warren Harding figured it out in 1920...
Congress and the Executive Branch have lots to do.
So far they’re not doin’ it right..
Its been done before..
Harding cut the government’s budget nearly in half between 1920 and 1922. The rest of Harding’s approach was equally laissez-faire. Tax rates were slashed for all income groups. The national debt was reduced by one-third. The Federal Reserve’s activity, moreover, was hardly noticeable. As one economic historian puts it, “Despite the severity of the contraction, the Fed did not move to use its powers to turn the money supply around and fight the contraction.” 2 By the late summer of 1921, signs of recovery were already visible. The following year, unemployment was back down to 6.7 percent and was only 2.4 percent by 1923.
http://www.firstprinciplesjournal.com/articles.aspx?article=1319&loc=r
BTW..ole Warren ALSO fixed immigration...
Mr. Harding signed into law the Emergency Quota Act[3] which sought to control immigration following World War I and preserve the distinctive American culture by ensuring the majority of immigrants came from the historically compatible cultures of Northern Europe. This law aimed to bring wages of hard working Americans under control by limiting immigration to 3% of the 1910 census. It was followed on by a similar act in 1924, after Mr. Harding’s death.[4]
A Warren Harding prescription...if filled ...would ignite the afterburners on the US job machine and the economy. However DC would have to yield on a tremendous amount of power. Our job as We the People...is to persuade them of the “utility” ..shall we say..of doing so. In all probability the same minds that made the mess...aren’t capable of the solution however.
BTW any takers that ‘Bammy couldn’t even tell you that Warren Harding was one of his predecessors in office?
Even more telling about what our betters in the RinoCracy think of a Constitutional President..
http://www.usnews.com/listings/worst-presidents/warren-harding
Cap all federal employees, elected, appointed or hired, to $100K/year. No automatic raises either. All campaign funds not spent revert to the Treasury.
Of course, people in power are more interested in shuffling the deck chairs rather than fixing the hole in the hull. Regardless of Party affiliation.
As a rule, I don't like import quotas.
As a rule, I don’t like America losing.
We’re losing.
The reason we’re losing, is we’re not fighting.
ideas that will actually get implemented...
1) Create a Federal Department of Jobs
2) Adopt Paul Krugman’s idea to start a phony cold war against the Space Aliens
3) Increase spending on food stamps by 7 million percent since they return $1.84 to the economy for every dollar invested.
4) Create a REALLY BIG Federal Department of Jobs
5) Massively increase Social Security and Medicare funding and drop the eligibility age to 50 so that lots of people retire and open up jobs for younger people
6) Instruct the Department of the Interior to hire as many laborers as needed to fill in the Grand Canyon and then dig it out again
7) Seek increased funding for the newly created Federal Department of Jobs
8) Have the Federal Government pick up the full cost of college tuition so millions of people will flock back to campus and create a construction boom and massive hiring of professors and administrators
9) Ban ATM machines, self-service checkouts and push button elevators
10) Cut the Defense budget by 75% and shift those resources over to the Department of Jobs
I agree, but import quotas is not the best way to win the fight. I'd love to see the current IRS code thrown out the window and institute a flat 17% income tax. This BS that Obozo throws out about "leveling the playing filed" when the top 10% pay almost 70% of the tax bill is pure nonsense that the GOP needs to get across to the stupid American public. I'd do the same thing to corporate taxes...a flat 15%. Romney is right: Corporations don't pay taxes, consumers do.
Your ideas are self-improvement suggestions.
Self improvement is good, and certainly overdue.
It is not fighting. We need to fight.
At the very least we should completely overhaul our trade policies with China. They amount to a collosal regime of “rigged trade,” starting with the currency peg. These practices have become an economic albatross and a national security threat.
A germ of an idea for social security and job creation popped into my mind the other day.
If people are gainfully employed, offer them the option to vacate their jobs at 55 years old and take their social security in a lump sum in the amount they have contributed. What they get is ONLY what they have paid in. They would have to agree to not sign up for any future government hand outs.They would have to have a good job history, etc. to be eligible for this option. This is a way out of the social security program for people who have lived life responsibly. It is also a way to open up the jobs they retire from and make the jobs available for younger workers to move up, which will leave lower tier jobs open to new workers. If it is true that people usually collect more money in social security than they paid in, giving it back in one sum would save money in the long run. Possibly make this a temporary, one time offer in conjunction with other permanent reforms to the ss system.
Further, if they start up an enterprise which creates jobs they would not have to pay taxes so long as they were the owner of the enterprise. This would also be a way to begin to walk back social security and seems more equitable than to just keep moving the retirement age upward which is keeping people in jobs longer, jobs which would be openings for new workers.
This may be a horrible idea for many reasons because I am not an economist and my understanding of these issues is not deep. However, this idea popped into my mind the other day and I thought well, it is at least a different approach and throwing it out there might spark a better idea. I realize there is an inherent contradiction in a program that has the purpose of getting rid of a program and I hesitate to put it out there and look like an idiot, so please don’t yell at me. I’m “just say’in.”
This is a common perception that is basically flawed. I did this calculation when I retired two years ago. I worked for 43 years, paying into SS every year. The problem is that people who calculate such things that lead to the statement above forget two things: 1) their employer matched what they paid...an amount that you could have had otherwise, and 2) that sum could have compounded for 43 years. Using the Rule of 72 and a 5% average growth during that time, and assuming that prices increase in the future by an average of 3% and the gov't matches that increase in benefit increases, I must live to 113 to breakeven. Even worse, if I die, the gov't gets the balance. I can't even leave my funds to my heirs. And they call this an entitlement? BS! I earned it.
Any list of this sort is sorely lacking if it does not begin with getting rid of the evil influence squatting in public housing at 1600 Penn’a Ave, Wash, DC.
Start over at 0.
Only fund those things that are constitutionally mandated.
Defund everything else.
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